Is The Rock the First (and only) Black WWE Champion? (Poll Added)

[8WON6]

Would rock have been giving his push and chance if he wasn’t half Samoan? AND a second generation superstar? He knocked it out the part but how many black guys got the rocket to his back after getting over or even got a chance to fail early like he did and not just be a scrub?

People who hate black people will blame guys like kofi Shelton and big e for not “stepping up” or grabbing the brass ring or whatever but damn near all of the black male wrestlers could go in the ring, cut decent promos, or at least get over enough to warrant a shot

Mark Henry was world heavyweight champion but I felt his reign more as an African American world champ then any other run including most of rocks reigns and that’s not a knock on rock. I always felt yes he is black but he ain’t black like me, kofi, Henry, truth, or The few tsc posters here who are black. Rock a legend and he became top five ever but y’all naive to think rock was a black champion because his daddy was black. His mom being Samoan and him being related to wrestlers was his legacy.

i agree with pretty much all this. The Rock is half black but I never felt like he was "somebody that looked like me"...to use a tired cliché. Or that represented anything resembling a black American male. At the height of his career he was either racially ambiguous or "Samoan". And him repping his samoan side more doesn't bother me, the issue is with WWE. WWE will go out of their way to find WWE title reigns for everybody but black men. The WHC counts but it's not THEE title. Him being half-black made him more accessible to white audiences. And no matter how some of yall want to call it militant thinking, you know it's true. These are still white americans, they still like black-shyt filtered through something else before they cheer for it.

 

[R=G]

The Rock's energy and how he is isnt Samoan. There isnt a Samoan of not who has ever talked like that..carried themselves with the charisma you find in prime Chris Tucker...prime Tupac...

So if he didnt look like u? Big deal. Super light skinned types like Curry look like they could be some off brand Latino mix type shyt too. Pick your poison

 

[Homeboy Runny-Ray]

when rock joined the nation of domination, he reminded me of roger guenveur smith, when he was in that MLK biopic back in the day.

he played a cooon that worked for the CIA, and was harassing corretta.

he looks & sounds like the rock too.

 

[DANJ!]

He didnt claim anything the most..he has wrestling family that are Samoan..so it comes up ALOT. You just see what u wanna see to justify your criticism of him. It's clear that Rock looks up to his grandfather more than any of those other family members.

Exactly...

What do people expect when one half of his family has produced NUMEROUS stars thru different generations, and the other half produced one... if there was an extensive Johnson family lineage in wrestling like there is an extensive Anoai lineage, that side of his family would be brought up more than it is. And even still, who his father is hasn't been hidden either, so I don't even understand nikkas with that kinda angle.

 

[WMG the 2nd]

Like I said nobody is saying he isn’t a black man
But, nikkas talking about Tupac and Chris tucker comparing them to the rock? Nah

Duke was singing Elvis songs comfortably. He made poo poo jokes and he was the most charismatic wrestler alongside Steve Austin

But, he didn’t look like know black man straight up. He didn’t endear himself to being black and he was and always embraced that Samoan side for the largest part of his career and life. He was tiger woods except he didn’t hide his black side, he fasho favored being Samoan and so did the wwe. Rock didn’t win the title as a member of the nation of domination. Rock never referred to himself as the first black wad champ on television. Wwe never really promoted him as such either. He had some cool shirts and was cocky like some of the black athletes but I still didn’t feel like “damn that’s a brother”

I just saw the rock. I rarely saw him as a black dude that wrestled. He was THE ROCK. Kind of like how certain guys are too big to really grasp outside of their characters. He was The rock with his Samoan tribal tattoos and shyt. Him doing a video with wyclef was akin to miz mania entrance to DMX: a small way to apppeal to an audience wwe has historically not cared about.

We can list a top ten of wwe talents that were black who would represent being a black man more accurately and chiefly than rock. But rock was the biggest star no matter what that’s not an argument. He was bigger than just being a black wrestler but they made sure we always knew he was a mixed race, Samoan first wrestler.

And that was his skill. Wwe banked on a second generation Samoan whose dad was a wrestling legend also and they got to squeeze in that black world champion shyt like affirmative action by proxy. Dude might be the goat but you think kofi, mark henry or Shelton Benjamin when you think African American wrestlers if you are a black fan like me and the few others in tsc.

He’s like vin diesel which is funny seeing as they both are in fast in the furious movies

 

[DANJ!]

Like I said nobody is saying he isn’t a black man
But, nikkas talking about Tupac and Chris tucker comparing them to the rock? Nah

Duke was singing Elvis songs comfortably. He made poo poo jokes and he was the most charismatic wrestler alongside Steve Austin

But, he didn’t look like know black man straight up. He didn’t endear himself to being black and he was and always embraced that Samoan side for the largest part of his career and life. He was tiger woods except he didn’t hide his black side, he fasho favored being Samoan and so did the wwe. Rock didn’t win the title as a member of the nation of domination. Rock never referred to himself as the first black wad champ on television. Wwe never really promoted him as such either. He had some cool shirts and was cocky like some of the black athletes but I still didn’t feel like “damn that’s a brother”

I just saw the rock. I rarely saw him as a black dude that wrestled. He was THE ROCK. Kind of like how certain guys are too big to really grasp outside of their characters. He was The rock with his Samoan tribal tattoos and shyt. Him doing a video with wyclef was akin to miz mania entrance to DMX: a small way to apppeal to an audience wwe has historically not cared about.

We can list a top ten of wwe talents that were black who would represent being a black man more accurately and chiefly than rock. But rock was the biggest star no matter what that’s not an argument. He was bigger than just being a black wrestler but they made sure we always knew he was a mixed race, Samoan first wrestler.

And that was his skill. Wwe banked on a second generation Samoan whose dad was a wrestling legend also and they got to squeeze in that black world champion shyt like affirmative action by proxy. Dude might be the goat but you think kofi, mark henry or Shelton Benjamin when you think African American wrestlers if you are a black fan like me and the few others in tsc.

He’s like vin diesel which is funny seeing as they both are in fast in the furious movies

This is kinda like white people logic tho', honestly...

"he's black but he's not really black" type shyt...

This sounds just like how this one white woman sounded when talkin' about how Colin Kaepernick had no business protesting cause "he isn't even really all the way Black"...

It's the kinda stuff mixed nikkas think about themselves and start believin' they gonna get treated differently by racists...

Seriously tho', people base this off their own opinions, nothing to do with him. It's never been hidden or denied who his father was, so obviously anyone that was paying attention knew he was half Black.

 

[R=G]

This is kinda like white people logic tho', honestly...

"he's black but he's not really black" type shyt...

This sounds just like how this one white woman sounded when talkin' about how Colin Kaepernick had no business protesting cause "he isn't even really all the way Black"...

It's the kinda stuff mixed nikkas think about themselves and start believin' they gonna get treated differently by racists...

Seriously tho', people base this off their own opinions, nothing to do with him. It's never been hidden or denied who his father was, so obviously anyone that was paying attention knew he was half Black.

He said the Rock is like Vin Diesel like the Rock...the fukkING ROCK is ashamed of his father. Wow. I'll leave it at that. Time to eat.

 

[WMG the 2nd]

This is kinda like white people logic tho', honestly...

"he's black but he's not really black" type shyt...

This sounds just like how this one white woman sounded when talkin' about how Colin Kaepernick had no business protesting cause "he isn't even really all the way Black"...

It's the kinda stuff mixed nikkas think about themselves and start believin' they gonna get treated differently by racists...

Seriously tho', people base this off their own opinions, nothing to do with him. It's never been hidden or denied who his father was, so obviously anyone that was paying attention knew he was half Black.

Rock and kaep are two different things
Rock is embracing his black side more now of course

But just because he would occasionally use slang awkwardly, and was cocky, what about him came off like a black man? Nothing bro

Dude didn’t promote his blackness past the nation and he was and still is known more so for his Samoan heritage, a heritage that has history in the wwe and what not. If he wasn’t Samoan or a 2nd generation star he’d be ass’d out like d’lo brown and many others were. Wwe have never fully got behind a 100% black man as top champ

shyt booker t was more like a world champ to me and he didn’t get a run with a top belt until he started talking like a anglo blue blood as king booker

 

[WMG the 2nd]

Plus, dude dad was a black Canadian and he was raised in Hawaii

How many black wwe world chanpions have y’all seen in y’all lifetime? How many Samoans?

How many black men have main evented wrestle mania? How many Samoans?

Even if you count rock it’s clear if you are a Samoan and a member of a wrestling family you get pushed

Like I said, if rock wasn’t half Samoan would he have gotten that far? Compare half black half Samoan 2nd generation rock to any other black star in the wwe. Rock was never treated like an African American wrestler. He was always the rock, Samoan first, and oh yeah he happens to be half black

 

[WMG the 2nd]

Let’s do it like this:

Shelton and Brock both were brought in together as elite amateur wrestlers. Neither could cut promos but both were raw talents who could do amazing shyt in the ring. Neither were considered the biggest pro wrestling nerds or marks before joining yet look how far Brock got compared to Benjamin

Kofi vs dolph. Both charismatic and young prospects who never were the best in ring talents or guys who could outwrestle anybody but were athletic, charismatic, and always remained relevant due to fans taking them beyond wherever they were on the card and at least reacting to them despite mediocre gimmicks when they started. How many titles has dolph had compared to kofi?

Swagger vs big e. Kinder and Roman vs any black superstars of the past 40 years. Booker t was OVER as fukk for decades before and as soon as he got to wwe. People claim it was WCW stigma why they never pushed him. Yet rvd even got to pin cena for the wwe title. Yet Steiner got a reign as a champ over triple h. Goldberg also. You can argue they all were more over than booker t yet booker t was with wwe longer than all of those dudes, was over from day one to the end, was charismatic, and yet never got a run with THE wwe title neither

The fact that the wwe made that hemp belt lets me know they don’t plan on giving nobody a run with it besides d bry and that’s fine because Bryan is a good heel champ. But, teasing kofi right now like this when they KNOW kofi has been over as the top guy of one of their biggest drawing teams of the past twenty plus years JUST because somebody was hurt or because it’s black history month let’s you know the rock was never a black man in their eyes. All these black wrestlers over the years yet only half black half Samoan rock has been treated like a legit main event talent says it all. Rock was incredible but he got his shots because of his family and not inspire if being half black

 

[Buzzed Lightyear]

It all boils down to how the WWE viewed him so you have to ask yourself this: Have they ever make him dance, rap, or speak ebonics? Answer this correctly & you have your answer.

 

[WMG the 2nd]

It all boils down to how the WWE viewed him so you have to ask yourself this: Have they ever make him dance, rap, or speak ebonics? Answer this correctly & you have your answer.

Everyone except the one half Samoan and who had family in the business

 

[96Blue]

Honestly, I never saw The Rock as a Black man. I never saw me, when I looked at him, I just saw The Rock.

Honestly, I don't think biracial (half-Black) people should be the face of BLACKNESS. Y'all can say whatever you guys want, but white people/non-Black people would never let somebody that is only half of them represent them or be the face of their people.

Is what it is.

 

[Homeboy Runny-Ray]

This is kinda like white people logic tho', honestly...
"he's black but he's not really black" type shyt…

well that's pretty much the whole point.

a white-owned company that's been around for 67 years, and the one black wrestler that they chose to give their favored championship to, is a racially ambiguous character that white folks don't really view as being black.

I don't think anyone is saying that the rock isn't a black man or hasn't dealt with any racism himself. I think if rock was white or even if he was fully samoan, he'd get propped up as the goat and wouldn't have the win/loss record of a high mid-carder.

but like someone alluded to earlier, the rock's blackness is filtered, and that's what a lot of white people like to see before they can fully get behind a black wrestler or athlete in general.

He’s like vin diesel which is funny seeing as they both are in fast in the furious movies

I thought the vin diesel being black or half-black thing was a rumor until I watched Kwame's unsung, and they said vin diesel is his cousin.

I noticed Kwame's female cousin that was all up in the episode is half-rican. I guess vin diesel is black/latino?

 

[GoddamnyamanProf]

It all boils down to how the WWE viewed him so you have to ask yourself this: Have they ever make him dance, rap, or speak ebonics? Answer this correctly & you have your answer.

Curious - Have they ever made Lashley dance, rap or speak ebonics? I didnt follow wrestling when he was originally around and I cant picture him doing any of that lol.